EREV ROSH HASHANAH, 5781 - My prayer for you.
Rabbi Robert L. Tobin,
BSFS, BSCJ, MA Rel., MHL, MAShabbat Shalom.
As the gates of Ne’ilah closed last year, I said a prayer for each of you: that God would grant you the wisdom, strength and love needed for whatever God would give us in the year ahead. I had no idea how much I was asking for. I knew we would have a divisive year of politics, but this - this was not in my mind. Yet I did know that I was praying for the unknown, and that is what we face every year at Rosh Hashanah: the unknown year ahead. Sometimes we have an inkling, and it comes true. Sometimes we are convinced and we couldn’t be more wrong. So my prayer was not for health, or wealth, or success, so I do wish those things for you. My prayer was, and is, for the wisdom, strength and love needed for whatever God will give you in the year ahead.
It is not only that we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We have been reminded that we don’t know what today will bring. And so we plan for the future and act in the present. And we pray that God will help to bridge the two for us as we move through whatever time we are given. A new year is upon us. May the lessons of the past inform our decisions in the present to create the future that we have always hoped for.
CLOSING PRAYER:
And I pray that we will feel God’s presence, and strengthen one another, as separately and together, we pray for all of the other blessings which the High Priest prayed for centuries ago:
May it be Your will, Adonai our God, and God of our ancestors, to grant us, with all Your people Israel,
A year of abundance,
A year of blessing,
[A] year of prosperity and success,
A year of assembly in Your holy place,
A year of song,
A year of fulfilling life,
[A] year of rest,
A year of consolation,
[A] year of peace and tranquility.
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